catching em young .......

Keira-WitherKay

i was doing my regular gig at a jhb market when i had these kids intruiged with the guitar........and i got them to strum while i played chords .....and i kid you not they got the rhythm perfectly right after i showed it to them just once........ potential indeed, and the look of total awe on the faces was reward enough for me, lovely to see kids still intruiged with guitars and not at the pc gaming store

shaundtsl

Hey Keira, Its pretty cool isnt it. My 2 year old loves the guitar and is fascinated by it. My eldest (6 years) also, but is loving drums more, but he is getting to the stage where the games are taking over. His current preferences for recreation is as follows:

1. Swimming
2. Games
3. Drums

Its cool as long as its there on the list, I have an electric drum set, a bass and guitars (they each have their own electric guitar) available for when they feel they want to play. I dont want to force them, but I want the instruments to be available for them all the time when they want to have a jam.

singemonkey

Cute picture ?

If I have one I don't think I'd be troubled by sending it for piano and guitar lessons early (or piano and anything they want to do really). After all, the lessons may put it off. But so may no lessons. Ultimately it'll have the grounding to pick it up again when it decides it's cool as a teenager.

For that reason the lessons would be jazz. It distresses me no end when highly trained classical players who couldn't cut the grade to be pro performers don't play music because they see that as the only avenue. I'm like, "I entertain people with the most minute fraction of your skills." It's criminal. Recently a flautist told me that she doesn't feel like she can play in popular music because she doesn't know how to improvise - they literally see it as a mysterious grand skill.

So yeah. Lessons that can be translated into whatever kind of music they want to make if and when they get the bug. Also I can make it accompany me ?

chris77

Ja, some kids are drawn to guitars like moths to a light! ? My sister's eldest (10 years) heads straight to my guitar rack everytime they come to visit. His favourite is my old Aria Pro ii LP. So the deal with him is if he ever wants to start playing she's his. Really hoping he takes up my offer soon.... :-[

Then about a month ago we were playing one of the songs we had done earlier while the folks were leaving church after the service. A boy about 5/6 walked straight up to me and started pushing his fingers to the strings ? He was busy telling me how he has a guitar but it broke and a ball and a dog and stuff when his mother came to politely take him away. Was a supercute moment though.

Sebber

Lovely photo Keira, and great post chris77!

I recently donated my bashed-up old Takamine G-Series acoustic to a good friend of mine who's got a nearly-2-year-old son. Obviously the kid is way too young to do anything as disciplined or structured as learning to play a musical instrument, and a full-size acoustic is far from the ideal even when he's ready to start learning. My friend says he always wished he'd learnt how to play an instrument, and hopes his youngster will do precisely that, and my view is to, as you say, "catch 'em young", which is precisely what happened with me as a little brat (not that I appreciated it much at the time, I sure as dammit do now)!

My mate mailed me a photo of him and his lightie playing "lap-steel" style last weekend, and the look of sheer, unbridled, joy on the kid's face brought a tear to my eye! DAMMITSOMUCH it still does! Anyway, he apparently LOVES his guitar. So I got them a Hercules wall mount for the bedroom: when the youngster wakes up in the mornings one of the first things he'll see is his git-fiddle... when he's old enough, and if he wants to, Uncle Sebber's promised give him lessons.